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http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/2175-7968.2013v1n31p103 ANOTHER IDEA OF INDIA. INDIA LITERATURES IN THE BHASHAS Cielo Griselda Festino Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais [email protected] Abstract: The aim of this article is to discuss the translation of Indian narratives in the bhashas , the vernacular languages of the Indian subcon- tinent into English through a politics and poetics of translation that gives voice and visibility to cultures that, otherwise, would be restricted to a very close range of dissemination. In this way, not only the Indian lite- ratures of the front yard, i.e., Indian narratives written in the English of the diaspora become visible, but also the narratives of the backyard of the Indian literary tradition written in the vernacular languages. In the process the term vernacular comes under erasure in the sense that what is actually vernacularized is the English language as it becomes a vehicle through which these bhasha literatures gain visibility. To illustrate this process, the article also brings a critical reading of the short story “Thayyaal”, written in Tamil, one of the languages from the South of India. Keywords: translation as hospitality, vernacularization, backyard literatures. 1. Cultural, Linguistic and Literary Plurality in India India is a millenary, complex and exuberant culture that has entwined the rest of the world forever. Travelers in Medieval ti- mes, colonizers in the Renaissance, tourists in the global present. For all, India is some object of desire to be reached either through travelling or through narratives. But India is not just one India but 104 Cielo Griselda Festino, Another idea of India... many Indias . The term “Indian”, as Dharmarajan (1991:xii) points out, “... is so deliciously vague and comprises so many regions, so many varied cultures, so many styles and traditions of writing”, that it would be impossible even for the most adventurous traveler to know it at one go or for the most voracious of readers to know it through its many narratives. Lately India has become even more familiar in other corners of the world, mainly, through English, one of its national languages that, paradoxically, was taken to the subcontinent, as is well kno- wn, by the British through its process of colonization. But to have access to the different Indian cultures that make up India, the avid reader, like the intrepid traveler, should be able to transit the many other languages spoken and written on the subcontinent. In India, English, or better, Indian-English, after its indige- nization during and after the process of colonization, should be regarded as part of a linguistic triangle together with Sanskrit, the sophisticated language of Indian traditional Hindu culture, and the bhashas or vernacular languages through which the many local cul- tures of the subcontinent articulate their own narratives: Bangla, Telugu, Kannada, Assamese, Marathi, Hindi, Malayalam, Urdu, Tamil, Gujarati, among many others. A fourth angle to this counterpoint is English as spoken by Indians living in the diaspora and of great circulation in the West. In turn, the relation among all of them is dialogic, always in a dy- namic process of change, and conflictive as their cohabitation is far from being pacific. The stories narrated through each one of them reconstruct alternative Indias that, like a palimpsest, repeat and modify each other. Many times, it is very difficult for the people of the different communities, within India, to have access to that rich treasures of their own national neighbours. As Dharmarajan (1991: xii) points out, “The tradition that a writer in Urdu ins- tinctively knows is most probably unknown to her counterpart in Karnataka who weaves her stories in Kannada and vice versa”. What to say then of the readers in the rest of the world. Cadernos de Tradução nº 31, p. 103-118, Florianópolis - 2013/1 105 Paranjape (2010: 91) problematizes and redefines the meaning of vernacular when he observes that, as traditionally employed, it has “pejorative etymological connotations, touched with a whiff of inferiority. Instead of the noun vernacular with its implication of being fixed and closed, Paranjape prefers the participial form vernacularizing because through its implication of movement and change, it can be understood as “...an enabling way of righting the asymmetrical balances of power between English and the other Indian languages”. This new meaning of the word, however, is not applied to the bhashas but to the English language itself, as it refers to the way in which it has been appropriated by the different cultures where it is spoken: “Vernacularization is not just a return to native or indigenous texts, but involves the nativization and in- digenization of English itself” (Paranjape, 2010: 100). Understood in this way, English is no longer the language of an elite but one of the bhashas , a channel through which the multilingual and, by extension, multicultural quality of India can gain visibility. As Paranjape (2010: 92) explains, problematizing the status quo of the English language in this way goes beyond the linguistic arena and “...opens up radical spaces for criticism and social change that have the potential not just of redefining curricula, but redrawing cultural maps” and, in this way, deconstructing the relationship of domination and subordination that has always been associated with English. This process of vernacularization is enabled by the trans- lation “...of English texts into Indian languages, of course, but more importantly, of Indian texts into English so as to vernacula- rize English itself and its contexts in India” (Paranjape, 2010: 91). When regarded in this way, English becomes a “vehicular” lan- guage (Gibson, 1991: xii) that helps in the transit and communica- tion among the bhashas , deconstructing any pre-established hierar- chy that favours monolingualism and monoculturalism with its effect of erasing cultural and linguistic difference. Mainly because these different cultural and linguistic traditions are not mutually exclusive but are deeply intertwined. As Paranjape (2010: 98) suggests, they 106 Cielo Griselda Festino, Another idea of India... act as con-texts to each other: the narratives in each one of the lan- guages act as “…con or con-trary portrayals of India in juxtaposi- tion”. Do away with one of them and the concepts of linguistic and literary complexity in India become seriously simplified. 2. The Politics and Poetics of Translation The question to be posed at this point, then, is what the role of translation should be in such a complex panorama. Almeida (2011: 2-2) points to the fact that the contemporary world should be understood as an act of translation. I understand that this is due to the fact that nowadays cultures that in the past were far apart are becoming much closer and, thus, linguistic and cultural translation have become foremost. However, Almeida (2011: 3) suggests that the metaphors used to represent translation need to be rewritten. She explains that translation should be understood not necessa- rily as a bridge that shortens linguistic and cultural distances but, rather, as an act that many times hides and hinders understan- ding. For example, many times the lack of linguistic equivalence can lead to not only linguistic but also cultural violence. She goes on to argue that this “…becomes even more marked when translation involves the passage from a vernacular language to a language like English” (2011: 3), as in the case of the bhashas . However, she adds that if a certain impossibility inheres to the act of translation, its condition is inevitable when it is understood not only as a linguistic but as a political act, in the sense that, through it, many cultures that, otherwise, would be restricted to a very close range of dissemination, will gain visibility. So, the author concludes that translation is paradoxical: it is impossible but ne- cessary (Almeida, 2011: 3-6). As Paranjape (2010: 100) explains in the case of India, the act of translation “completes the bhashas because …if they remain only within the domains of their own linguistic community, [they] are limited and incomplete. Only Cadernos de Tradução nº 31, p. 103-118, Florianópolis - 2013/1 107 through translation can they acquire the kind of attention or un- derstanding that they deserve”. This relationship between both languages already points to a concept of translation that is based on a double-standard. For example, many times authors of narratives in the bhashas translate their own narratives into English and make a point of leaving the marks of their vernacular languages both in the vocabulary and the syntax of the new text. The English in which the translation is done is then closer to Indo-English, one of the bhashas . These new renderings, as Almeida (2011: 8) explains, lead to a “textual multiplicity” in which the new text acts as a trans-text or con-text of the original and neither version surpasses the other. Rather, as already hinted at, they complement each other. Hence, the act of translation becomes a conflictive but also a highly productive space shaped by the play between the translatable and the untranslatable. The metaphor that best depicts this approach to translation is that of knitting: “an invisible act of scheming, repairing, copying and pasting the narratives that make up the substance of a culture” (Almeida, 2011: 8). Again, this is directly related to the transla- tion of the bhashas into English since it demands a great deal of respect, particularly if the culture is considered as being subaltern. According to Almeida (2011: 11), Spivak points to two aspects to be considered in the act of translation: a political one and an aesthetic one. The first one has to do with the translator’s attention to the ideological aspects of the culture, particularly because it will be translated into English.

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